April 1998
EMPLOYMENT
PURPLE MOON is a new company producing CD-Rom products aimed at
a female audience. Their first projects, Rockett's New School and Secret
Paths, were released late last year and were good sellers at Christmas.
The concept for the company came from research done at Interval, a think-tank
in Palo Alto (article about them in The New Yorker, March 2, 1998).
Purple Moon is looking for an art or animation director, a character designer
and an art tech/production assistant who is good with debabilizer &
photoshop. Send reel, resume, art samples to Grace Chen, Purple Moon, 2325
Third St. Suite 335, SF 94107 (415) 575-1234. www.purple-moon.com
WORK WANTED - A WARNING
CARTOON NETWORK RIP-OFF? A few years ago MTV decided animators were
desperate enough to make them a station ID for free with the hopes of winning
a $10,000 first prize, a second prize of $5,000 and a few more token prizes
of $1,000 each. At the time professional companies were being paid about
$15,000 for each MTV logo they produced. Over 300 animators tried for the
prizes and at least 290 people spent several hundreds or thousands of dollars
each to lose. A lot of money was spent by people who hoped to win. After
complaints, MTV switched to a storyboard contest the following year that
didn't require people to go broke making a finished product.
Now an outside producer, who plans to show his new series on the Cartoon
Network, is asking people to spend money on lab bills so he can view their
shorts (20 sec. to 2 min. long) for a possible airing on TOONHEADS.
To enter you have to transfer your work onto D2, Beta or 3/4" tape.
His weekly show offers you a "chance to show your stuff." By-the-way,
the pay is nothing! Yes, run up the lab bills and give your work away.
The Cartoon Network says they offered to underwrite the cost of paying the
animators, but apparently the producer felt people didn't need to be paid.
When I programmed an animation show for The Living Room Festival,
a local show, we paid $10 a minute to show your work once. When Bernyce
Coe used to sell independent shorts to Showtime, HBO, Bravo and other cable
stations, the artists would get at least $100 a minute. Nik Phelps, who
shows animated films and provides live soundtracks at local clubs, pays
an honorarium to the artists.
There is something very wrong with the way Toonheads is trying to
do business. A copy of this newsletter is being sent to them to let them
know that it isn't cute for a producer to rip-off artists. It is nice to
give young artists a break, but don't exploit them in the process.
"STARLIGHT HOUR" SEEKS SUBMISSIONS on VHS for funny shorts under 2.5 minutes. The show will
be a weekly late night program that will air locally on KGO-ABC starting
May 30. Shorts can be on either film or broadcast quality video. Submission
deadline is April 17. Money was not mentioned in the fax asking for work.
Contact Marcia Kimpton of Kimpton Productions, 1901 Stockton St. San Francisco,
CA 94133. The fax was sent on March 2 from (415) 834-0411.
Back to ASIFA - San Francisco Aprill 1998 Newsletter
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